make a garden journal

Many gardeners keep a journal to record seasonal garden information, but have you thought of combining an art journal with the customary jottings about seeds and harvest? Make memories out of yours.

Create a Fun and Artistic Garden Scrapbook Journal

Creating a scrapbook journal would be a super easy way to keep a record of the garden:

what you planted,

when,

how much produce you harvested,

the children’s garden,

flower bouquets you made for Grandma

and even future plans and hopes for your landscape.

It is a neat way to combine your memories of the garden and your family growth together in one very creative crafty album. Make something creative that is not only a beautiful keepsake, but a useful resource to keep track of garden information that you are sure to want in the future.

Make Photo Pages

Add your photos, use scrapbooking techniques, and make a simple collection of your garden notes AND your memories.
You have heard of garden journals and you have heard of scrapbooking, have you heard of combining the two for a beautiful keepsake record of your gardens and memories of the flowers you’ve grown?

Whether you are new to scrapbooking (like me!) or an old hand, I bet you can find some inspiration for a whole new world of creative fun.

Watch How to Make An Easy Journal

Scrapbooking For Beginners

I am new at scrapbooking, are you?

I am new to scrapbooking, but both the hard-copy and the online types are interesting.

There are so many great artists and companies who have been producing the most tempting papers and elements that I felt it would make a great combination with the garden journals that we gardeners find so necessary.

Who doesn’t need to keep track of their landscape budget? Or remember which shrub was planted in the front yard, or what the name of those perennial plants were in the side garden… or what that great annual container combo was two years ago? So, why not create a scrapbook that includes those facts in a beautiful artistic way?!

source: the Italian voice on Flickr

That type of information is really helpful to be able to find easily, and with the addition of family memories… Well, what a great a way to keep track of info in a form that is just plain fun!

WHY START A GARDEN SCRAPBOOK?

Everyone believes we will remember how the garden looked in a particular year, or time of its creation.

.. but how soon we forget!

The pictures and notes of those times remind us.

Gardens, like children, have a way of growing up and changing.

A Garden Scrapbook Journal is a precious memory collection of those garden years, and sometimes of the children that played in them, as well.

TIPS I LIKED:

Recycle Old Cereal Boxes and Old Notebook Covers into Journal Covers

Use a circle paper punch instead of scissors to cut out printed labels

What Sort Of Pages Can I Scrapbook?

I suggest a number of different sorts of pages to collect and display your garden info. Of course, you might want to combine pieces of info a different way.
However you decide to compile it, the types of pages usually found in a garden journal create a simple way to construct the topic of a section in the your scrapbook journals. A few ideas on info you may want to categorize together in a page:

Envelope or Pocket Pages for keeping track of seed packets and news or magazine clippings.

Charts– of frost dates or harvest abundance. Any kind of chart can become a page or part of a page.

How To Make Your Own Pocket Pages

Pocket pages are so handy. Odds and ends that you don’t wish to glue permanently into a journal are ready for reference. Even a place for some extras seeds, if that is what you want.

Get A Kit

Here is a collection to help you get started.

Of course, you can gather together the stickers, elements, papers, etc. on your own to create the basis for your scrapbooking pages. Many people like to do that, but if you would like to simplify your projects by starting out with some ready made collections, try the one below. Especially if you are new to this type of crafting.

Make Your Garden Journal Useful And Pretty

A bundle kit has a little bit of everything, and that is all you need for just your garden scrapbook.

Garden Journal Scrapbook Necessities

CUTTERS, MATS, ETC.

Good tools make a world of difference.

If you watch any of the many tutorials available, one thing that is noticeable is the quick work that some tools make of awkward or tedious jobs.

I am always impressed how the flat tool used for making folds orthe paper cutting toolshalve the time and create such professional looking results. Not like my fumbling fingers and school scissor attempts at exactly the same tasks!

Color Coordinate with Stickers

Garden colors fill this famous Mrs. Grossman’s sticker collection that can accent the garden journal pages.

With items ranging from bird watching to flower containers, these can decorate notes you make in your scrapbooking journal.

Idea For Using Stickers
Don’t be boxed into the idea that garden journal scrapbooking is just for adults. This could be the start of an art or science project, or just a fun summer activity. Simplify the whole project into a home made “lapbook“. Children love stickers, so use them for entry accents, to add pizazz to photos, etc.

How-To Encyclopedia

If you are new to scrapbooking, or just like to learn new and exciting techniques this is a wonderful resource book.

Inspiration Encyclopedia

– Get Wind of All The Top Tools and Techniques
Get the tools you need for the projects that you want to try. Find some inspirations for a different style than you might have otherwise imagined. Create!

Do you either journal your garden projects and produce or do you have a scrapbooking hobby? Had you thought of combining the two?

Dig Into Your Garden Information

Source: heartofwisdom.com

If someone mentions the basic garden tools that every gardener should have, they tell you about hoes, trowels, shovels, and weeding tools, but how many list a garden journal? It is relegated to garden paraphernalia; peripherals for most gardeners, an after-thought jotted on forgotten notebooks.

That is how I thought of a garden journal for years.

That is, until my ironclad memory for trivia and detail began to fail me. Names of favorite bulbs I’d planted or even where I planted them, a particular cultivar of perennial that I was sure I would remember, all became harder to bring to the surface of consciousness.

Names of Plants, Locations

Remember instructions, and what’s what

I’m sure those names and places where I had planted them were stuck in there somewhere, but it was an increasingly challenging to capture those faded names that just seemed on the tip of my tongue only yesterday. The reality was that no one can invariably recall every garden plant name and detail. Not without special supernatural gifts, anyway.

Then I came across the idea of creating a garden journal that records landscaping details that stays attached to the house and its present owner. Something tangible that can be passed on to the next owner should the house and garden get sold. That is a valuable resource to attach to a house… if not in money, in time and maintenance currency.

Since spring is the time to rev up the gardening engines (yes, my husband recently got the tiller and mowers in seasonal working order) I thought about this much ignored garden tool.

All My “Creating A Garden Journal” Pages

I have a number of resources posted that will make it easier to track your gardening info and create a hardcopy version of a garden journal. This is ideal for record keeping all the important stuff.

You think you will remember the names, purchases, planting places, etc. -but it is time to stop fooling yourself. We all have this common human foible, since few of us have photographic memories. Writing down the information in an organized way is the simplest solution. It becomes a valuable tool, one that you may find creates happy memories, as well.

Printable Garden Journal! Look at this, if you want to put your computer to work for you… print your own garden journal. You choose your paper, and if you have a graphics program you could tweak colors and add in pictures. All the basics are here from seed starting to plant description templates pages.

I thought this was a pretty exciting find going into winter. For the Frugal, it could be a thoughtful addition to print up something special for a fellow gardener on your list, it could dress up a gift certificate to their favorite nursery or catalog.

And garden sayings…how about this one?

“My husband said if I buy any more perennials he would leave me
– – -gosh I’m going to miss that man!”

Standouts

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